Duchess of Sin (19 page)

She drained her glass before taking it. “Thank you, sir. And thank you, madame, for the conversation. It was most… enlightening.”

As Conlan led her from the card room, he leaned down to whisper in her ear. “What are you doing here, Anna?”

She slanted him an unreadable glance. “Are you not happy to see me?”

“I’m always happy to see you.” Too happy. He remembered the taste of her female essence on his tongue, the way she moaned
and pressed him closer, and his traitorous penis hardened. “I’m just surprised you ventured out in this fog by yourself. It’s
too dangerous, especially after the fire.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“And you could not send me a note? I would have called on you tomorrow.”

“This isn’t the sort of conversation for my mother’s drawing room.”

“Come with me.” He steered her down a dark hallway and into his private office. Sarah had been working on accounts there earlier,
it seemed, for a lamp was lit on the desk next to a pile of ledger books. The rest of the room was in shadow.

Conlan shut the door and leaned back against it. He watched as Anna sat down on the leather chaise by the
wall and took off her mask. Her ivory face glowed, and he could smell the sweetness of her perfume. Her presence invaded the
whole space, making it hers as she did with everything.

“What was so urgent then?” he said.

At first, she didn’t answer. She slowly peeled off her gloves, folding them in her lap as she studied the office. “Your faro
dealer is quite charming, and I like her gown. If that’s the uniform of the Olympian Club, I may have to ask for employment
here.”

“You’d be good at it. Everyone would be so distracted by you that they would throw their game. But I think your situation
in life is not quite so dire yet that you need to seek employment in a gambling club.”

“It might be, if I am discovered here in this wicked den of vice.”

“Then why risk it?”

“Because I like wicked dens of vice, I suppose. They’re far preferable to the Castle and the Rutland Square assembly rooms.”

“Anything would be preferable to the Castle, I’m sure.”

“Yes. Cold, drafty, dull place.”

“I’m glad I’m not invited there then.” Conlan sat down on the edge of the desk and took off his mask. Anna’s presence, so
close in that small, dark space, wreaked havoc with his good sense. “But you did not come here to speak of Dublin Castle,
I hope.”

“No.” She leaned back on her elbows. “You know my sister, Mrs. Denton, I think.”

Where was all this going? He was even more baffled by Anna than before. “Of course. Everyone knows of the famous Lady Mount
Clare.”

“And her husband, Major Denton, as he was before he resigned his commission to go abroad?”

Conlan braced his fists on the edge of the desk. “I have not had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Denton.”

“You did not even encounter him during the rebellion? His regiment was in County Kildare, near Adair Court, I would think.”

“What are you asking me, Anna?”

She rose slowly to her feet and came toward him. She set her hands to either side of him on the desk, leaning so close that
he could feel the brush of her soft hair on his throat. He held himself rigid, not grabbing her and dragging her across his
lap as he longed to.

“One night at Killinan,” she said softly, “there was a knock at the door. Caro and I were terrified; we had lived with the
awful certainty that any day we would be burned out. Mama even had our grandfather’s old dueling pistol loaded by her bed.
But Eliza went down to open the door, telling us to hide and flee if need be, and she found Will there, wounded and bleeding,
unconscious on our doorstep.”

Conlan watched her, not saying anything.

“We thought him dead, and Eliza was inconsolable. Will is her great love, you see, and he has been since they were children.
But we nursed him back to health, and he took us to Dublin, where it was thought we would be safer. I thought I remembered
nothing of that night, though I did go to the window. It was such a black night, and I was so very scared.”

Her face looked perfectly white, and her eyes were wide and almost midnight-blue as she remembered what happened. He recalled
that night, too, every awful moment
of it. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. She went to him, but she stared past his shoulder, as if
she was far away.

“But you do remember now?” he said.

“I don’t know if it’s a memory or a dream.” She looked directly at him then, steady and serious. “Was it you? Did you leave
Will at Killinan?”

So it had come back. The night that he came across the ambushed patrol, too late. They were all dead except Will Denton, clutching
his miniature of Eliza Blacknall as he bled into the Irish earth. “Yes. It was me.”

“And did you—were you the one who wounded him?”

“No. I swear on my mother’s grave, Anna. I did not hurt your brother-in-law or any of his men. One of my tenants told me about
the planned ambush, but I reached them too late to do anything but find Denton.”

She studied him closely. She reached up and took his face in her soft hands. “In the Uprising, did you kill? Even if it was
not that day, did you kill?”

He could not lie to her, not when she looked at him like that. “Yes.”

“So did I. I have blood on my hands, the same as you, Conlan.” She let out a ragged breath. “I wanted so much to forget those
days. I tried everything—parties, card games, drinking. But it is still with me. What I saw, what I did. Do you feel the same?”

Shocked, Conlan reached up and clasped her hands in his. He held them tight against his chest, feeling her tremble. “Sometimes
in life we’re forced to do terrible things,
mo chuisle
. Whatever you did, it was only because you had to.”

“He tried to rape me, that English soldier,” she said
tonelessly. “I panicked, I only wanted his—his hands off me. He pressed me to the ground and pulled my legs apart. I felt
his—his
thing
against me. So I stabbed him with his own dagger. I stabbed him over and over until he was dead, and I was covered with his
blood.”

A hot, wild fury filled Conlan at her words, at the horrible image they drew. Someone dared touch her, violate her, his beautiful
Anna. If the
tudan
was not already dead, Conlan would scalp him and cook his heart over a bonfire as his Celtic ancestors had done to their
enemies. He would send him to hell.

He held Anna against his chest and pressed a tender kiss to her temple. Her pulse beat frantically under her skin. “You did
the right thing, the only thing you
could
do. You should never think of it again.”

“I know, but…” She tilted her head back to look up at him. “Do you go to confession, Conlan? I’ve heard that Catholics do
that often.”

“I fear I have not been to church in years,
cailleach.
” Though he kept a chapel and a hidden school with a priest-teacher for his workers’ children, he could not go himself. His
soul was too stained. “I went when I was a child sometimes, and my mother would have a priest visit from France.”

“And did you feel clean afterward? Forgiven?”

He laughed. “Considering my sins at the time consisted of stealing a pie from the kitchen and disrespecting my mother when
she scolded me about it, I don’t think I needed much cleansing. It’s a different matter now. It would take a century of confessions.”

“I would just like to forget, to know myself again as I once did.” She flattened her palms against his chest,
sliding them down until she reached the bottom button of his waistcoat. She slid it free as she kissed his throat. “You make
me forget, Conlan.”

And she made him forget, too, God help him. “Anna, you should let me take you home.”

“No, I want to be here with you.” She kissed his jaw, his cheek. Another button popped free, and another. She went up on tiptoe,
whispering against his ear. “Don’t you like it when I’m here with you?”

“Aye, I do.”

“Then kiss me, Conlan. Please.”

With a deep groan, he dragged her against him and covered her lips with his. His tongue slid deep into her mouth, and she
greeted him eagerly. Their breath mingled, frantic with a need deeper than any he had ever known.

She spread his waistcoat wide and slid her hands over his thin linen shirt, tugging it out of his waistband. She touched his
bare skin, her fingers teasing over his ribs, then his shoulders. The edge of her nail scraped over his flat nipple, and he
moaned at the rush of sensation.

“Anna—you really should go,” he whispered against her lips.

“I can’t,” she answered, a sob in her throat. “I want you. I want it to be you, now.”

And he wanted her so much he could not see straight. It had nothing to do with his work, with Ireland, with what her family
could do for him or with annoying his cousin. It was only her, Anna. She was all he wanted that night. All the beauty and
sweetness that he had ever craved and thought could not exist in the world.

In answer, he kissed her again, roughly, nothing held back. He forced her head back as his tongue plunged deep into
her mouth. She met him with equal fire, her arms wrapped tightly around him, her nails digging into his bare back.

He slid off the desk and walked her backward until they tumbled onto the chaise. She pushed his coat off and tore his shirt
over his head. He tossed them to the floor and leaned back into her to kiss her throat, her shoulder, licking a ribbon of
fire over her soft skin.

“You are gorgeous,” she whispered, closing her eyes as she held on to him. “My god of the Underworld.”

“If you stay with me,” he said, “you may never see sunlight again.”

“I like the darkness.” Her hand slid lower and unfastened his breeches. He sprang free from the fabric confines, hard as iron,
and he dared not move or even breathe as her soft, tentative touch slid over him. “Do you like this?”

“
Diolain,
yes,” he said hoarsely.

That seemed to embolden her, for her caress grew more certain. She slid down his length, then up again, leaving agonized pleasure
in her wake. She shoved his breeches down over his hips and reached around with her other hand to caress his taut buttocks.

If she didn’t stop, it would be over before it began. He jerked out of her arms and stood up to strip out of his boots and
breeches. He stood before her, naked and hugely aroused.

She didn’t run in fear, his witch. She lay back on the cushions and studied him, a smile on her lips. “I feel quite overdressed
now.”

“I can help you remedy that,
cailleach.
”

“I’m quite sure you can.” She sat up and turned her back to him so he could unfasten her gown. As it eased away from her body
to reveal her slender back, bare of
corset or even chemise, he pressed his lips to the curve of her spine. She was warm and soft as summer cream, smelling of
sweet lilies and the earthiness of orchids.

She trembled as he touched her skin with his tongue, tasting her. As her gown fell away and she kicked it to the floor, he
slid the pins from her hair and watched the heavy golden mass tumble over her shoulders.

She lay back across the chaise, her bare body very white against the brown cushions, and stared up at him with parted, flushed
lips. His avaricious stare took in her bare breasts, high and crowned with erect pink nipples, down to the indentation of
her waist, her hips. And the vee of blond curls between her legs, glistening with the moisture of desire.

She still wore her stockings, black silk with red ribbon garters, and that pale hair seemed even more golden against their
vividness. He remembered the musky taste of her, the sweet, salty smell, and he slid his hands slowly up her legs as he parted
them and drew her to the edge of the chaise. He wanted to erase any of those terrible memories from her mind forever. To make
her only remember pleasure.

He knelt between her thighs and softly kissed her bare skin just above her red garter. Her fingers threaded through his hair
as she pressed him closer, and he was most happy to oblige. He traced her seam with his tongue before plunging deep into the
soft, hot core of her and tasted her intoxicating essence.

A
nna was sure she was dreaming again, but this time it was no nightmare. This time, she floated on a cloud of pleasure and
bright joy.

When she ran away from home tonight, she was so terribly confused. She wanted to know the truth, yet she wanted to shut it
out as well. To push it back into the dark recesses of the past and forget about it. She knew Conlan could help her forget.
Perhaps, being so much a part of it all, he was the only one who really could. The only one who could understand and see past
the pretty picture, which was all anyone else wanted to know.

But more than even forgetting, she had to know the truth. There was no moving forward without it. Conlan swore he had not
wounded Will that day, and Anna knew that to an Irishman an oath on his mother’s grave was sacred. But that did not mean he
was innocent of all wrongdoing in those black days. He confessed to killing—just as she had.